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Both of them look good to me. The music output from Lilypond looks marginally better, but I don't like the font for the vocal text (something which can obviously be adjusted). This is a matter of some importance to me as I'm finishing up a set of ten pieces to submit for publication. If accepted I'm sure the publisher will have their own ideas about typesetting the music. If not then I'll self publish it and then Lilypond may become an important part of my workflow.

I looked at the documentation this morning on how to import XML files and found that I could also use an ETF file. Am I correct that either requires running a program in the command line? I've done a little of that (IP config, etc) and I know how to get there (click on start, click on run and your command line appears) but it's definitely outside my comfort zone. It would be helpful if you discussed that aspect in more detail. Thanks.

Originally posted by Steve Chandler:I looked at the documentation this morning on how to import XML files and found that I could also use an ETF file. Am I correct that either requires running a program in the command line? I've done a little of that (IP config, etc) and I know how to get there (click on start, click on run and your command line appears) but it's definitely outside my comfort zone. It would be helpful if you discussed that aspect in more detail. Thanks. [/b]

It seems that the ETF convertor is not maintained anymore, so I wouldn't expect it to work very well. But yes, that requires running a command-line program, just as with the MusicXML convertor. It wasn't difficult to use, though. To run the MusicXML convertor, I just typed "musicxml2ly ", where is the name of the MusicXML file, and it created a file with a .ly extension. I then ran LilyPond on that file, and it created the PDF.

If you're not comfortable with the command line, or not willing to learn, maybe LilyPond isn't for you. Although, it does seem there's a frontend for Windows: http://denemo.org/

Well I just tried using an xml file in Lilypond and ran into a basic problem. I've put the xml file in my my documents folder. My DOS skills are rusty to nonexistent. How do I specify the file, I tried just the name plus extension (Melody.xml) and it's unable to find the file. If someone would remind me what the proper syntax is for addressing files in the command line I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.